Into the Uncanny Valley

2018-04-24T15:17:00-04:00

Architectural representations often embody the tension between familiar and unfamiliar. In an effective rendering, the new buildings or landscapes share the same illusionistic space with images of existing buildings or landscapes, producing an almost exquisite confusion between real and unreal.

Architectural renderings are not photographs; or are they? Susan Piedmont-Palladino examines the hyper-real imagined worlds of contemporary architectural drawings through theories of the uncanny, and considers the disconcerting effect that occurs when "we can't quite sort out the relationship of an image to the world."

Photorealistic cityscapes drawn in pencil only

2015-07-28T14:53:00-04:00

Paul Cadden’s work is astoundingly realistic.

If you think straining over Photoshop for hours on end sweating out the nuances of that latest rendering of a project is time-consuming, Paul Cadden voluntarily spends his time drawing photo-realistic versions of photographs with pencil. Only pencil. According to the artist's website, "Although the drawings and paintings I make are based upon photographs, videos stills etc., the idea is to go beyond the photograph. The photo is used to create a subtler and much more complex focus on the subject depicted. The virtual image becomes the living image, an intensification of the normal. These objects and scenes in my drawings are meticulously detailed to create the illusion of a new reality not seen in in the original photo." The results, which frequently incorporate cityscapes, are worth a look:

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Into the Uncanny Valley

Photorealistic cityscapes drawn in pencil only